


Hello From Here

by dprmark



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Oblivious, Slow Burn, early 20's crisis, typical markhyuck antics except they're not idols
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 11:22:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20435168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dprmark/pseuds/dprmark
Summary: In which no one knows how Mark and Donghyuck work, but everyone knows they somehow do.





	Hello From Here

Mark shuffles on his feet, flipping his phone over to check the time as people start to flow out from the lecture hall doors. He moves toward the mass of people and with a small voice starts, “Hi, um, is Donghyuck-” 

“Donghyuck’s on his way out!” A girl, Yunhee, if Mark remembers correctly, calls out to him. Laughter was heard from behind him and Donghyuck’s arm is slung around his shoulders.

“You do this everyday and yet you’re still shy about it.” Donghyuck giggles, “I’m pretty sure everyone in that class knows your face by now, they all tell me that you’re waiting as soon as they see you.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you texted me back I wouldn’t have to ask so often.” Mark huffs, “I don’t know if you’re busy playing games or asleep skipping class entirely.” He scratches the back of his neck and throws Donghyuck’s arm off of his shoulder. Donghyuck’s pout is short-lived as he quickly pulls out his phone and pushes it towards Mark face with gleaming eyes. The screen shows a character with nothing but boxer shorts on, carrying an absurdly shiny machine gun. Mark is not impressed. 

“This guy in my class showed me he sold all his clothes to buy a pink gun and he’s the most intelligent person I’ve ever met! I mean the clothes hardly do anything to prevent damage and this gun would’ve cost me 5000 won in real life but I got it for free!”

“One day I’ll give up on checking to see if you’re there and you’ll regret playing your dumb game instead of texting me back.” Mark grumbles. He sits down at their usual spot in the student lounge and Renjun looks up from his laptop. 

“Did you even pay any attention at all during that lecture? I’m starting to think your time is better spent at home instead of showing up just to sit there and play games.” He chuckles. Donghyuck collapses dramatically onto Renjun and wraps himself around the smaller boys arm as Mark takes out his ramen. Renjun doesn’t bat an eyelash.

“But Renjun it’s so boring!” Donghyuck whines. “I don’t care about heat transfer unless its about the overheat time of my new machine gun!” He promptly shows Renjun his screen just as he did to Mark.

“Donghyuck.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes and sinks in his seat at Renjun’s tone of voice. “You know finals are coming up, and _I_ know that you’re behind by at least 12 lectures. If you want to pass, I suggest you start studying now. You _do_ wan’t to pass the finals don’t you?”

Renjun is met by silence. Mark quietly chews his ramen with wide eyes.

“I honestly don’t know how you ended up taking four science papers when it was your most hated subject in high school.” Renjun shakes his head, but squeezes Donghyuck’s arm in a small apology. Donghyuck sits up with a huff and takes his wallet out.

“Okay I promise I’ll start on my lab report, but I need some ice cream for some motivation, wanna come?” Renjun smiles and points to the essay on his screen, so Donghyuck switches his eyes to Mark, who pauses before slurping up the rest of his noodles and fishes his wallet out of his bag too. 

“Be right back!” Donghyuck says happily and tugs on Marks arm. 

“I’m only going to see if they have the watermelon bar.” Mark says as they walk towards the convenience store.

“Won’t you give up on that already? We haven’t seen those things since middle school.”

“There’s always hope.”

Mark leaves the convenience store disappointed and empty handed, and goes to work after making Donghyuck promise to actually start his report this time. Donghyuck waves him off with his ice cream in hand and mutters something about not needing to be babysat. 

-

It’s strangely quiet, something the place isn’t used to unless it’s around the time of finals. Renjun and Jeno have papers sprawled out across the small dining table and Donghyuck sprawls himself out over the couch. Donghyuck makes sure his AirPods are hidden behind his hoodie as he switches between his lab report to a mukbang on his laptop. 

A jingle of keys are heard, the door swings open, and not a second passes before Mark groans out, “Why are you guys here _again_?”. He toes off his shoes and drops his bag near Jeno’s feet. Jeno yelps and kicks it away.

“Your place is the closest to campus.” Jeno replies, tapping his chin with the top of his pen. 

“Yeah but that doesn’t make it the communal area for you guys.” There’s no hostility to Mark’s words and even if there was, he’d be too tired to argue any further. Renjun and Jeno continue to look over past papers and Mark kicks Donghyuck’s legs off the couch to make room for himself. Donghyuck looks over at Mark’s worn out expression as he collapses onto the couch, taking his hat off and ruffling his hair.

Mark, working hours after classes, Mark, volunteering for student representative because no one else wanted to, Mark, so good yet so, so oblivious.

“Have you eaten?” Donghyuck asks. Mark leans over to take a look at Donghyuck’s screen and his stomach rumbles in response.

“I’m pretty sure I have another pack of ramen left.” Mark mutters and moves to stand up. Donghyuck knocks Mark’s arm out from under him and receives a “Hey!” and a glare for his efforts. He cups Mark’s face in his hands and tries to ignore his resistance.

“Eating too much ramen is unhealthy for you Mark, haven’t you seen all the Facebook posts your mom shares about having too much sodium? Don’t worry i’ll cook my baby a real meal for once.” He squeezes Mark’s cheeks for good measure and makes his way to the kitchen, not noticing Mark’s flush and Renjun’s fake gagging noises.

“I told you I was hungry like an hour ago Hyuck, why is Mark getting special treatment?” Jeno calls out, not without sharing a smirk with Renjun.

“I’m not giving him special treatment, I’m just making sure he doesn’t _die_ cause we need someone to pay the rent for this place.” Mark attempts to throw a chopstick at Donghyuck but it lands in the pan of rice he’s frying on the stove. Donghyuck fishes it out and throws it back at Mark. 

“I should really get you guys to start helping me with the rent for the amount of time you spend here. Or change my lock so you guys go back to your own places for once.” Mark picks at the rice that landed on his shirt from the chopstick.

**“**But what kind of friend would that make you?” Donghyuck cracks an egg open into the pan.

Renjun and Donghyuck live in another complex in the apartment across from Jeno’s. It was only ten minutes away from Mark’s, but in the awkward distance between too far to walk and too close to bus, especially from campus. Mark was the only one out of the three of them that was able to afford one close to their university, first because he worked more than the three of them combined and second because he had the most commitments on campus too. 

After more time of sizzling and inviting smells wafting throughout the apartment, Donghyuck brings the pan over to the coffee table near the couch. “C’mon kids, dinner is served.”

Renjun and Jeno join the other two boys on the floor, and are met with a mess of fried rice and spam and egg haphazardly presented in the frypan. 

“Great presentation Hyuck.” Renjun teases as he crosses his legs. Donghyuck throws them their own pairs of chopsticks and gestures to the pan. 

“Beggars can’t be choosers. Dig in.”

The four boys begin to eat around the pan. Donghyuck makes sure to give his cheesiest smile when Mark says a quiet thank you because “Anything for my baby.”.

“Don’t think I didn’t know you weren’t studying Hyuck,” Renjun points accusingly with his chopsticks. “If you were really doing your lab report you would have at least been typing, you were probably watching something again.”

Donghyuck sticks his tongue out at him. Renjun doesn’t have any trouble studying, he loves his degree and never falls behind because of it. Jeno keeps up as well probably cause he likes Renjun enough to study all the time just to spend time with him. Donghyuck copies Renjun’s gagging noise in his head. Mark gives him a concerned look. 

“Didn’t you say your final was in two days? How are you gonna manage that as well as your reports?”

It’s not like Donghyuck wasn’t concerned, he wasn’t being lazy either. It just took so much more effort to put in work especially for subjects that he hated, let alone any job that he’d be able to get after graduating from this degree. But he had to get through this.

“Don’t worry,” Donghyuck says between chews, he eyes them all one by one. “I got this.”

**Author's Note:**

> hello hopefully i dont give up on this and actually finish something for once lol let me know if you like it!


End file.
